What are the upper classes calling their boys nowadays?

[seeingdots]

So apparently naming trends in the UK often follow a step behind the upper classes. This may or may not be true, I don't know, but if so what does that mean for the next crop of popular names that will replace Jack, Oliver etc at the top of the lists? I don't know many 'upper class' people but those I do have only really used classic names like George and William.

Do you think there's truth in that idea and if so what's due a surge in popularity over the next decade?

Disclaimer: I'm expecting a boy but just posting for fun/interest. I'm neither desperate to make my little one sound posh nor to be on the leading edge of a new trend!

Yea, but one follows the other on the whole. And background/breeding is a lot of what determines class.

What exactly is 'background/breeding' ? Is it having an aristocratic title?

Digby. Otto

Digby is a dog's name!

No, just your educational background, the background of your parents, the context you grew up in etc. I'm not saying I endorse that btw, but it would be naïve to think the class system doesn't still exist in any form.

Ridiculous question imo. What 'class' you belong to is ridiculous imo but what name you like depending on the class is even more ridiculous.

I agree.
Op maybe try not to see everything in life though the prism of class.

Oh come on 🙄 The OP said this thread was lighthearted, she doesn't "see everything through the prism of class" FFS.

People are so uptight whenever class is mentioned.

Like it or not, "class" does still exist, and people are interested in how different social groups do things.

Different social groups yes absolutely, but 'class'?!

Ridiculous imo.

No, just your educational background, the background of your parents, the context you grew up in etc

So by going to university you become 'upper class'? Wow, then I'm considered 'upper class'

"Different social groups yes absolutely, but 'class'?!"

Class is shorthand for different social groups.
Why do people have such a bee in their bonnet about the word?!

They're just like the rest of us mere mortals at end of the day...

I agree that this 'class' question is ridiculous. And people choose names they love, names that have meaning to them, names that go well with their surname.

Thankfully we all have different tastes! Regardless of 'class' whatever that means...

Class is shorthand for different social groups.

Really? Different social groups can mean so much more - people who have lived abroad, people who prefer to live in large cities, people who went to University, people who are vegetarians etc etc.

My desk mate at work is very very posh, his son is called Benedictine, not only is it a ridiculous name in my view, I also thought it was the feminine version of Benedict.

I met an elderly extremely aristocratic man recently called Gary

Oh FFS, I should've known this would descend into a debate about class. I don't think about everything through the lens of class and I thought I'd made it quite clear I wasn't posting in the hope of naming my child something that would evoke any particular class. I had heard this as a source of trendsetting for names here (can any of us really deny that there is a certain preoccupation with class still amongst the British public as a whole?) and it made me wonder about future trends for boys.

Thank you to those posting in the vein in which the thread was meant! I wasn't looking for a name but I think now Mango may make it onto my list

I still maintain that one day Marmaduke will rise again

@SimonTJ the feminine version is Benedicte. Benedictine sounds like an antiseptic cream.

@cloudpop wasn’t there a dog or a cat in a film or something?

Something like that. But what a magnificent name

Gary.

Benedictine is the name of a brandy favoured by Burnley Miners - a ' benny and 'ot water please. Doesn't sound that posh to me ...

Please don’t call your son Ottilie as suggested above. It’s a lovely name for a daughter but not a son.

I wouldn't think they'd go around telling people tbh.
I don't know any upper class, aren't these landed gentry? i think those in the newspapers are generally mc and aspiring umc.

Upper classes tend to stick to classic royal or biblical names. Alexander, Arthur, Louis, Frederick, Michael, Alfred, Andrew, Charles, James, Edward, Thomas, Philip, Oliver, Henry, John, Mark, Richard, etc.

Allegra!!!! (Sibling of a baby in the telegraph). I once had a cat called Allegro and everyone said that was ridiculous. Obviously Mr Allegro was just born to be upper class

I don't know any upper class, aren't these landed gentry? i think those in the newspapers are generally mc

Exactly. Although I don't even know what 'makes' someone upper class?